


Social Reform

by fuckener



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternative Universe - No Cognitive World, Friendship, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 19:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckener/pseuds/fuckener
Summary: Ryuji works through some things. It's easier with help.





	Social Reform

Normally at these things, Yusuke alternates between trying to make him have some genuine connection to the art on display – even though it's mostly shit Ryuji’s pretty sure he could do if he had access to hard drugs – and having him steal obnoxious amounts of the hors d'oeuvres they're serving.

“I already took four of the shrimp,” he explains as Ryuji coughs and discretely unloads shrimp number five, six, and seven into Yusuke’s little man-purse... thing. “If I take any more they'll give me funny looks.”

Ryuji got the funny looks instead: waiters watched him wrap three bits of shrimp into a napkin and then walk off with the combined thing hanging out of his pocket.

He crosses his arms. “We could've just gotten food after this and saved me some embarrassment, y’know. I think the caterers think I’m homeless.”

Yusuke shuts the clasp of his bag and shrugs. “I don't have the money.”

Ryuji knows that. He's working that shit job at the beef bowl place in Shibuya to pay for all the ramen Yusuke can't afford – though considering how many orders he’s screwed up and how many lectures he’s gotten about the beef being ‘ _dangerously undercooked_ ’ or something along those lines, chances are that might not last much longer.

He jams his hands into his pockets and makes a face at the sticky soy sauce mess he's met with. Why’d he put that thing in his damn pocket? Stupid.

“It can be my treat, I guess,” he says, shrugging. “If you’re still hungry or whatever.”

He has no game. Every girl he's ever spoken to has told him so explicitly. With Yusuke it's easier to work around because Yusuke doesn't even have enough social awareness to know Ryuji is _trying_ to have game. He just wants to eat.

“If you don’t mind,” Yusuke says, and then looks sidelong at Ryuji with the most obvious, desperate expression.

Ryuji shrugs. “I guess not.”

He’s such a goddamn sap.

-

He even pays Yusuke’s fare to Ogikubo. It’s a charitable donation, he tells himself. He’s just a nice guy. It’s not _that_ weird.

Yusuke stirs his noodles, over and over. Even when he’s fidgeting he looks so... fancy about it.

His voice is oddly quiet when he asks, “What did you think of my piece?”

Ryuji blinks at him in the middle of taking a too-big mouthful of noodles.

It’s the way Yusuke’s acting, like he’s self-conscious or something. Like Ryuji’s opinion on art is even worth shit, which even _Ryuji_ can admit it isn’t.

“It was nice.” He clears his throat and stares down at his bowl. His tongue is on fire. Thank fucking _god_ the guys on track never asked how their form looked or anything. “Y’know. Pretty.”

But Yusuke’s stuff is all nice and pretty. Ryuji sets his shoulders and picks at his food with his chopsticks. He can feel his ears burning. “I liked the colours you used, and – and your brush strokes. And stuff. I liked it.”

He doesn’t know what his problem is: the word ‘beautiful’ just refuses to make its way from his brain out of his mouth.

He glances at Yusuke just in time to catch Yusuke glancing up at him, then they just kind of... look at each other.

Ryuji is starting to think this whole damn thing _is_ weird, and only getting steadily weirder every time they hang out.

“I’m glad,” Yusuke says. “Thank you for coming tonight.”

Ryuji ducks his head, shrugging. “Anytime, man.”

Yusuke looks at him, almost admiringly. It's not fair of him to do stuff like that. It gives Ryuji the stupidest fucking ideas.

“It's nice to go to these things knowing I have someone’s support again,” he says. “I can't tell you how nice it is.”

Ryuji doesn't know what to say to that. He looks at Yusuke’s hand on the table, long and pale, and thinks of doing something stupid.

His fingers twitch. He curls them into his palm. "Don't mention it."

-

Some nights he lies in bed and tells himself he should stop answering Yusuke’s texts. Better yet, stop texting him first. Maybe delete his number altogether or something.

He isn’t sure it would even help. It’s not like he has friends to spare – not like Yusuke does, either. It’s not like he can just cram every stupid thing in his head away again now he’s thought it all up.

He’ll just look at Yusuke’s contact info on his phone and hover his thumb over the edit button and think about what would happen if he pressed **DELETE**. He doesn’t really want to, but sometimes he really wants to want to.

-

It’s January. Still too cold for him to go out running – not that it stops him.

It takes his mind off of things for a while. He’s not the type of person who should be left alone with his thoughts, especially when those thoughts feel like they could ruin his whole life, and especially when his whole life doesn’t feel like much of anything when he looks at it too closely.

He doesn’t run near Shujin anymore, or by his house now that Kawashima's family moved into his neighbourhood – he still feels weird when his ex-teammates spot him out running, guilty for still enjoying it after everything that went down. When they’re not around it still feels like it belongs to him.

That’s how he ends up in some cafe in Yongen-Jaya, drenched in sweat and rubbing at his bad leg, which feels a lot like shit. His mom was right: it _is_ too cold, he _does_ push himself too far.

He wipes his mouth on the back of his hoodie sleeve and tries to ignore the pain.

“Yo,” he says to the barista. “There’s a bathhouse around here, right?”

The barista nods. He looks about Ryuji’s age – he’s wearing glasses and a nametag that says _KURUSU_ on his apron. Ryuji thinks he might have seen him around before. His name kind of rings a bell, too.

“It’s not far.” He nods his head at Ryuji’s empty glass. “Do you want more juice?”

Ryuji shrugs. “Nah.”

 _Kurusu_ , he thinks idly, and straightens.

“Hey,” he whispers, even though there’s nobody else in the place. “Is it true you killed a guy last year?”

Kurusu gives him a blank look. “Do I look like I’ve killed a guy?”

Truth be told, now Ryuji is face-to-face with the notorious transfer student slash murderer, he just looks kind of normal. Actually, he’s pretty sure he remembers seeing him in the library a couple times before when he was borrowing manga, just sitting in the study section, reading.

“Not really.” Ryuji squints. “You kinda look like a nerd.”

Kurusu’s mouth twitches. He pours Ryuji another glass of orange juice anyway and doesn’t charge him for it on the bill. (It's kind of – well, no, it isn't. Ryuji just has a one-track mind these days.)

-

 _I sold a painting,_ Yusuke messages. _Monjayaki?_

 _Jeez_ , he’s so bad with money he makes Ryuji feel responsible sometimes – but, you know. He’s not about to turn down delicious monja.

 _Dude,_ he answers. _Hell. Yes._

They meet up in Tsukishima. Yusuke is looking especially pleased with himself and stubbornly refuses to back down when Ryuji tells him he can pay his half.

“I know you can,” Yusuke says. There’s a frustrated little line between his eyebrow and a smear of red paint just under his jaw that Ryuji can’t stop staring at despite himself. “But I want to treat _you_ for once.”

Ryuji shifts uncomfortably. His ears burn. It’s such an obvious tell - it’s like his body is trying to out him. “If you’re sure.”

Does Yusuke know about the weirdness between them? Ryuji just can’t tell. Yusuke’s weird all on his own and totally oblivious to it most of the time: if he doesn’t even know that _he’s_ weird, there’s no way he’s picking up on how the way Ryuji looks at him sometimes is weird. He isn't even sure that Yusuke is – _y’know_.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Ryuji jumps in his seat. “What?”

Yusuke gestures his head. “You won’t stop rubbing your leg.”

Oh. Ryuji looks down. He is doing that.

He shrugs. “I trained too hard so it’s actin’ up again. No big.”

Well, _some_ big – it’s actually been pretty sore the past few days. He had to take some painkillers before coming all the way out here, but he didn’t think he’d been letting on that much about it.His mom’s given him enough shit already without knowing the full extent of it.

Yusuke frowns at him. He sighs hard enough for his hair to fly up.

“You have no sense of self-preservation,” he mutters, and then he spends all of his money on more monjayaka than two people can even eat.

-

Kawakami chews him out for his homework.

Maybe that's the wrong way to describe it – it makes it sound a lot angrier than it actually is. She just seems tired of him at this point, of giving him the same lectures. That's fair, he thinks.

"Sakamoto, we both know you're not as stupid as your work makes you out to be," she says, sighing. "You need to start applying yourself. What happened to your old study group?"

Ryuji looks away sharply and spots Ann Takamaki walking by – she looks at him as she goes, almost sympathetically. He jams his hands in his pockets. Why do teachers like lecturing kids in the hallway, where everyone can see? Why does it seem like they enjoy making his reputation worse around here?

"Those guys don't talk to me anymore," he says, shrugging.

"Oh," Kawakami says. She clears her throat. "Well, maybe you can find some new friends to work with."

He looks at her. She smiles back, strained and uncomfortable looking. Even she doesn't believe her own horseshit.

Whatever. He borrows some books from the library he knows he won't read just to feel a little less useless. While he's in there he sees that Kurusu kid sitting in the back minding his own business while two girls stand at the shelves, giving him dirty looks and whispering behind their hands.

When he sees Ryuji his mouth curls up just slightly. He raises a hand; Ryuji waves back, awkwardly. He thinks of maybe going over to talk to him, but the girls' whispering intensifies – he hears his name, Kurusu's, the words _birds of a feather_.

He clenches his jaw and turns away. It doesn't reflect well on anybody to look like they're friends with him, and the transfer student's got enough shit on his plate. He just takes the books out and leaves with shoulders raised, ignoring what he’s convinced are the words, _I didn't think he had any friends._

On the train to Shibuya he thinks about going to the gym. His leg is still kind of fucked and he knows he should leave it for a while, but it'd make him feel better than he does now. He'd feel a little less like a piece of shit on a treadmill.

His phone buzzes and knocks him out of his head.

 _I had a horrible day,_ Yusuke says, _and I just spent ¥1000 in the arcade waiting for you._

Ryuji stares at it for a minute. Another message pops up.

_I won you an octopus plushie. You both share the same noble spirit._

He snorts. He can feel himself smiling. _Be there in five_ , he sends back.

_-_

Ryuji jerks back.

“I’m not gay,” he blurts out.

Yusuke blinks. “Pardon?”

“I don’t -”

He sighs, scrubs an unsteady hand over the back of his head. His cheek is fucking _tingling_ where Yusuke just – they're in the middle of goddamn Central Street, and Yusuke just – he just –

His heart is pounding. Why is he like this? Why’s he such a fucking _coward_?

Yusuke just looks him, confused.

“You… have an eyelash on your cheek,” he explains.

Ryuji blinks. His head feels like static.

“Oh,” he says, dumbly.

Yusuke reaches out again, drags the tip of his finger very carefully across Ryuji’s cheek, and – there it is, a tiny little lash. He gives Ryuji the dirtiest look.

“You're so _dramatic_ , Ryuji,” he says with distaste.

Before Ryuji even has a chance to flip his shit over _Yusuke_ saying that, of all people, he blows on the eyelash and steals Ryuji's wish.

"At least tell me what you wished for, you thieving bastard," he bitches, kicking at a stone.

Yusuke frowns and holds the big ridiculous octopus plushie he won for Ryuji (but so far refuses to part with) a little tighter to his chest.

His cheeks are pink. "I wished for you to mind your own business."

-

"Uh, wow," Ann says, sitting down. "I didn't know you worked here."

If possible, Ryuji feels a hundred times more stupid looking in his little hat and apron than he did before.

He shrugs. "I need the money." She doesn't have to know _why_.

Even though they're severely understaffed and the whole shop is fucking jumping, he decides to kill another five minutes wiping down the exact same spot on the counter. If he takes another eight orders at once he's worried he'll get to the kitchen, immediately have a heart attack, and die.

"You here alone?" he asks.

It's kind of a dick thing to say, he realises after. Shiho's still in the hospital and all.

She sighs. "Akira was meant to be coming but the guy he's staying with asked him to help out, and by the time I found out I was already craving beef bowl."

"Kurusu?" Ryuji blinks. "So you guys are…"

She looks at him flatly, shaking her head. "Friends."

"Oh."

"Akira's nice," she says. "After all that stuff with Shiho and Kamoshida… he went out of his way just to be nice to me, and it wasn’t because he wanted to date me or anything." She shrugs. "He just saw that I was kind of lonely and sad."

Then she looks embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to unload that on you.”

Ryuji thinks of the first time he met Yusuke – what a mess he'd looked like. When Ryuji asked him to get ramen together and told him it was his treat, he'd looked so, so relieved. He'd grabbed Ryuji's hands. He'd said, _you don't know how much that would mean to me._

"I hope you're not sad anymore," he tells her, awkwardly. "Or lonely."

She blinks at him and then gives him that nervous smile he remembers from middle school.

"Thanks," she says. "I hope you aren't, either."

-

Ryuji takes Yusuke to the café in Yongen-Jaya to chill out – he's all stressed out about the composition of some new piece that refuses to turn out the way he wants it to. Ryuji had to all but physically drag him out of the studio after class to put an end to all his lamenting about being an artistic failure.

"You're from Kosei High," Kurusu notices. He looks between them. "How did you two meet?"

"I forget," Ryuji says, shrugging, and he doesn't even really know why he lies about it.

Yusuke gives him an offended look. "No, you didn't." He turns back to Kurusu. "Ryuji saved me from being scammed by the yakuza, and then he bought me dinner and we became friends."

"Oh." Kurusu nods slowly. "That was nice of him."

It wasn't really. Shujin students had heard all about those con-artist assholes on Central Street, but Kosei ones hadn't. He can still remember overhearing their voices on the way home: some guy saying, _this job will solve all your problems_ ; a soft, worried voice saying, _I really do need the money._

He remembers thinking, what do I do? Do I stop it or not _?_ And then he'd turned around and saw Yusuke for the first time – this scared, lonely looking stranger – and he'd known he couldn't just walk away.

"It's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me," Yusuke says, quietly, and then sips on his coffee.

Ryuji looks at him for a second too long and then catches eyes with Kurusu. Caught. Totally fucking caught.

He turns away again quickly. "Yeah, well. Nice doesn't fix the bump that guy punched into my nose."

"I like your nose," Yusuke says, very seriously.

"It's a nice nose," Kurusu adds.

"It is," Yusuke agrees.

"Oh my god." He throws a balled up napkin Yusuke's way. "You _gotta_ shut up, man."

He still remembers sitting with Yusuke at the beef bowl place that night they'd first met, talking about the yakuza and Madarame and the sorry state of Yusuke's life.

"I found out my father is… actually a bastard," Yusuke had explained to him, solemnly.

Ryuji had sat across from him with two wads of napkin stuck up his nose to stop the bleeding.

"Yeah," he'd said, partly distracted by the length of Yusuke's eyelashes, "we've all been there."

-

"What do you think it means if someone spends an hour winning you a shitty octopus plushie at the arcade," Ryuji says, "and afterwards you keep the shitty, cock-eyed octopus plushie on your bedside table and feel weird whenever you look at it?"

"Uh." Ann squints at him. "Nice weird?"

Ryuji thinks hard. There's so much fucking noise in this place – he really does not have the time in his shift for this conversation.

"Yeah." Someone in the kitchen yells _where the hell is Sakamoto?!_ "I think so."

Ann hums thoughtfully through a mouthful of katsu and then shrugs. "I guess it means you have nice, weird feelings for that guy from Kosei you're always hanging out with."

-

It's not that he's ignoring Yusuke (and even if he was, Yusuke is _way_ too busy tearing his hair out over his new painting to even notice). It's just that he needs a little while to gather all of his potentially life ruining thoughts.

Running isn't the way to go – both his mom and Yusuke himself have been passive aggressively bitching about that fuck up for the past couple of weeks – so instead of actually going a run, he puts his training gear on, catches the train to Yongen-Jaya, and buys overpriced juice at the café Kurusu works at under the pretence that he has any other reason to be there.

It's kind of stupid of him. Ann says Kurusu has a calming presence and Ryuji is pretty much desperate for one of those right now. Plus, it's _true_ – Kurusu is unbelievably low-effort to be around. He just talks to Ryuji about classes and this weird anime his friend down the street is making him watch.

"We should go a run together sometime," Akira suggests, nodding at Ryuji's outfit. Costume, more like. "After school."

"It won't do any favours for your rep if people there see you hangin' out with me," Ryuji says, shifting.

Akira just shrugs. "I don't care what other people think. You're a nice guy." He waves a hand over himself. "Don't you think I'm less of an axe-murderer than people make me out to be?"

"I mean – I _guess_." Ryuji makes a face at him. "I'm not gonna lie, dude. There is something a little unhinged about you."

Akira gives him this great big maniacal smile and Ryuji is so surprised by it he laughs juice out of his nose.

"Think about it, anyway," Akira says. He looks over the empty café. "I'm not exactly drowning in potential friends around here."

"No, it sounds - yeah," Ryuji stammers. Nobody has outright asked to be his friend since he was six. He fishes for change in his pocket and leaves Akira a decent tip to make up for feeling like a jackass. "I'll see you 'round, okay?"

"Hey," Akira calls on him as he's walking out, "you should bring that Kosei kid again next time."

-

" _Wow_ ," Ryuji breathes. He whistles. "This is the painting you're all bent out of shape about?"

Yusuke snaps up to standing and then tries, unsuccessfully, to cover up a six-foot canvas with his skinny body.

"What are you doing here?" he asks. He looks like a cross between homicidal and really, _really_ embarrassed – the latter is a first for Ryuji to witness.

"Uh." Ryuji goes up on his tiptoes to try and get another look. Even he can tell that it's, like, _especially_ good. "I guessed you probably didn't eat anything today, so."

He flashes Yusuke the cup of instant ramen cup in his pocket.

All the murderous intent disappears from Yusuke's face. He goes all soft.

"Oh…" He looks off to the side. "Of course, you…"

He clears his throat and gestures vaguely to the painting. "You weren't supposed to see.”

Ryuji has barged into this studio a lot (a _lot_ a lot) over the past few months and Yusuke hasn't given a shit about what he has or hasn't seen, and that includes some uncomfortably explicit charcoal drawings Ryuji really thought he should have had more of a sense of propriety over (they were of dicks).

He frowns. "Why not?"

Yusuke looks at him for a moment and then sighs. "I suppose it doesn't matter now."

He steps back from the canvas and lets Ryuji look at it for a while, slack-jawed.

"Dude," Ryuji says meaningfully. He elbows Yusuke's side, grinning. " _Dude_."

"It's unfinished," Yusuke says, but he looks pleased by Ryuji's reaction all the same. "I was hoping you wouldn't see it until the next exhibition.”

Ryuji stares at it. "Why not?" he asks again.

"Well," Yusuke says. He gestures. "It's – it's of you."

Ryuji turns to stare at him instead.

"I suppose more specifically, it's of how you make me feel when I'm with you," Yusuke elaborates, looking directly at Ryuji. No shame, no embarrassment, just – honest.

"I…" Ryuji turns back to the painting. It's beautiful. He really hopes he doesn't cry on the train ride home over this. "Thank you. It’s - it’s beautiful."

Yusuke smiles at him, brightly. He nods his head at the painting.

"No," he says. "Thank _you_."

 _Shit_ , Ryuji thinks, very profoundly. His mouth is so fucking dry.

He clears his throat. "I actually came here to… talk to you about something."

Yusuke blinks. "Oh?"

It's now or never: Ryuji's made his mind up.

“I’m gonna try to be better," he says, stuffing his awkward hands into his hoodie. “I’m gonna try to be more like you, you know? Not care what people think of me so much anymore. I mean, like – people whose opinions don't matter to me.”

It’s quiet. Maybe it's too obvious of him. Maybe it sounds more like a confession than anything else – it pretty much is.

He breathes in, and looks up.

Yusuke is staring at him wide-eyed, lips parted. He doesn't say anything, and Ryuji likes him so much it stops feeling weird then and starts feeling okay, like him wanting to push Yusuke’s stupid hair behind his ear isn’t the end of the world.

He swallows. “I mean – you know, right?”

“Know what?” Yusuke asks quietly.

 _God_ , Ryuji thinks, and he puts his face in his hands. Then he stands like that for a while, trying to make himself brave.

“I’m sorry,” Yusuke says quietly. He rests a hand on Ryuji’s back. “Did I – is something wrong?”

Ryuji shakes his head. “Nah. Nothing.”

 _Okay_ , he thinks. Okay _._

He turns to Yusuke, pushes his stupid, soft hair behind his ear, and kisses his cheek.

"Oh," Yusuke says, and when he turns his head he's so close that their noses touch.

They look at each other for a moment. Ryuji can feel Yusuke's ticklish breath on his mouth, his warm hand spread across his back; he can feel his heartbeat in his chest, frantic, impatient, this feeling in his gut so thick it feels like it might swallow him whole. Then –

"I knew that already," Yusuke says in the most unromantic tone of voice imaginable, and he cups Ryuji's jaw in his hands and kisses him soundly on the lips.

-

Another day, another shift he miraculously finishes un-fired.

"You smell," Yusuke starts, and then he leans way too close into Ryuji's personal space than he should in the middle of Central Street and _inhales_ him, before finishing, kindly, "bad."

Ryuji rolls his eyes. "Thanks, dude. Any other dick comments you want to share with me?"

Yusuke hums like he's really thinking about it. "I liked your apron." He smiles, genuinely, non-dickish. "You looked very… appealing in it."

"Appealing," Ryuji repeats quietly, mouth quirked. He tries not to care that there are so many fucking people around.

" _Appealing_ ," Yusuke agrees, and – _there's_ that dickish smile.

"You didn't have to wait on me outside, y'know," Ryuji tells him while he's deciding what to get from the vending machine - he's pretty much dying of thirst after that long, steam-filled shift he just suffered through.

"I feel bad taking up space in an establishment I don't plan on buying anything from," Yusuke says.

Ryuji doesn't really get it, but then again, Ryuji would also do just about anything to stick it to that shitty fucking job.

"It won't be that way much longer." Yusuke raises his head proudly. "The flower shop in the underground mall asked me to start working next week."

Ryuji grins. "Yeah?" He nudges Yusuke's shoulder with his. "That's awesome, man. Well done."

Yusuke smiles. He bumps the backs of their hands together and Ryuji curls their pinkies around each other on an sudden, giddy instinct he can't ignore. It's little, but – it's nice. They split a Dr. Salt like that. He only lets go when he hears someone yelling his name and can't figure out where the hell it's coming from.

"Ryuji! Hey!"

He turns. Ann and Akira are poking their heads out from the diner stairwell. She waves. Akira has this look on his face like he knows exactly what she just interrupted and finds it funny.

"Hey." She smiles, a little self-consciously. "Do you guys want to come in with us? They're selling a new tea."

Ryuji looks at Yusuke. Yusuke looks back at him with an expression that says he'll do pretty much anything for food, and then he gives Ryuji this funny, knowing smile, and turns back to the others.

"Tea sounds lovely," he says. 


End file.
